. . . I was born on February 11, 1866 at Ditchingham, Lancashire, England. My parents George and Eliza Palmer joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in England and came to Utah in June 1874. I can remember it was bout three o'clock on Monday afternoon when they received the telegram telling them to be in Liverpool at twelve o'clock that night ready to sail for America. They packed just our clothing and what could be put in a trunk and had to leave everything else. I had a half-sister who was staying with some people in London at the time and my parents sent them a telegram telling them to put her on the train so she would meet us in Liverpool ready to sail with us. She was either put on the wrong train or something but when we reached Liverpool she was no where to be found. Mother and father were both worried and kept walking up and down the platform. It was just a few minutes of sailing time when they finally found her and she was crying and so frightened and had lost her baggage. She had nothing but the clothing she was wearing until we reached America and mother [p.154] could buy her some more.
Every morning we held meetings on the boat and I usually started the singing. I remember being quite seasick for a few days. When we reached what was called Devil's Pass we encountered a storm. This Devil's Pass is a place where if a boat gets too near will whirl it about and very few ever get out of it again. In this storm the boat drifted over into Devil's Pass and about two in the afternoon the sailors began to holler "down deck, down deck" meaning for everyone to go down to the lower deck. It was terrible and water was coming in through the portholes and everything was slipping and sliding all over the deck. Mother put us children up in a top bunk with a lot of Danish children. That is with the exception of my half-sister who couldn't be found again. When mother did find her she was up on top of a lot of baggage where one of the men had put her to be out of the water on the deck. Mother sat by the bed until about four o'clock in the morning so as to watch and care for us children. After the storm was all over and we were out of the Devil's Pass the captain said if it hadn't been for the Saints on board nothing could have saved us. There had never been a ship go down that had any Saints on it.
When we got to Castle Garden we left the ship and got on a train bound for Salt Lake City. We arrived there in July 1874 and stayed there for about three weeks and then we were sent up to Franklin, Idaho. . . . [p.155]
BIB: Manfull, Emma Palmer, [Autobiography], "Utah Pioneer Biographies," vol. 19, pp. 154- 155. (FHL)
(source abbreviations)